Personality is Related to Educational Outcomes in Late Adolescence: Evidence From Two Large-Scale Achievement Studies.

As no previous research has assessed personality in a large-scale study of student achievement, this study is the first to investigate the relation between personality traits and academic outcomes in adolescence. We used data from two independent Luxembourgish samples of students including a representative sample of 15-year-old students (n = 898) and a large heterogeneous sample of more than 2,000 ninth and tenth graders. We found a differentiated pattern of results concerning key educational outcomes: Conscientiousness was more closely related to grades, whereas Openness showed higher relations with achievement
test scores. Possible mechanisms that may underlie the pathways from personality to ducational success and the implications of using short inventories in the context of large-scale educational) studies are discussed.